from the copyright-is-censorship dept

We've written many times about how copyright is frequently used for censorship, and just recently we wrote about law professor John Tehranian's excellent article detailing how copyright has a free speech problem, in that people using copyright to censor has become more common and more brazen. Whenever we write this kind of thing, however, I get pushback from copyright maximalist lobbyists and lawyers, who insist that no one really wants to use copyright for censorship purposes, but merely to "protect" their works.

I'm finding those claims difficult to square with the following story, which I only found out about because the Copyright Alliance -- a front group for the big legacy entertainment companies, and put together by some well known lobbyists -- tweeted out a link to a story on a blog by Hugh Stephens, entitled A Whale of a (Copyright) Tale. Stephens is a former copyright policy guy for Time Warner as well as a former diplomat, who blogs about copyright issues in Canada.

He happily tells the tale of how the Vancouver Aquarium has successfully blocked filmmaker Gary Charbonneau, who made a documentary critical of the Aquarium's treatment of dolphins and whales, from using clips from the Aquarium's website. In the original version of the documentary, approximately five minutes of the hour-long film came from clips he pulled from the Aquarium's own website. The Aquarium wanted to get the entire film blocked by the court, giving you a pretty clear vision of how they were looking to censor the film. While the courts have not gone that far, they did order Charbonneau to make a new edit and remove all of those clips.

Stephens not only thinks this is a perfectly grand solution, he mocks Charbonneau for not having thought more carefully about the copyright issues here (really):

Charbonneau may be facing substantial damages if he is found to have violated the Aquarium’s copyright. You would think that Charbonneau, as a film-maker and creator himself, would have given this greater thought. It would have been so much simpler and straightforward to have taken a little more care to consider the implications of using copyrighted content without permission, and accessing clearly-legal alternate sources if necessary. That is the true moral of this story.

Wow. It's as if Stephens has no idea that filmmakers regularly rely on fair use -- and that's especially true of documentary filmmakers. It's why, here in the US, there's been a big movement to build best practices concerning fair use to help better protect documentary filmmakers in making use of the works of others. Yes, this case is in Canada, rather than the US, and they have a somewhat different set of rules involving fair dealing, but let's cut through the semantics and get to the basics:

The Vancouver Aquarium did not need copyright to produce videos to put on its website. It made those videos to help market the aquarium.

The Vancouver Aquarium did not sue Charbonneau because they were concerned about copyright.

The Vancouver Aquarium did not sue Charbonneau because they were protecting the vast licensing market for the marketing videos they put on their website.

The Vancouver Aquarium sued Charbonneau because they don't like his film, wanted to make life difficult for him and wanted to censor the film.

And copyright maximalist lawyers and lobbyists are cheering this on. I guess it's good that they're making their true colors known, but it is rather sickening.

The details of the case just make this look more and more ridiculous. The Aquarium claimed -- and the judge accepted -- that leaving the clips up in the movie while a full trial happened would create "irreparable harm." What possible irreparable harm would happen here? Yes, the Vancouver Aquarium's reputation may be harmed, but that's not a copyright issue. Again, it's difficult to see what copyright related harm could possibly come from this. Would it harm the Aquarium's ability to license those clips? It's hard to believe there's a very big market for that. And, even if there were, that's the kind of thing where a monetary remedy would fix any such harm. The only conceivable harm comes from what would normally be protected speech if one actually supported freedom of expression.

Hell, even the Aquarium more or less admits that it brought this lawsuit not because of any copyright issue, but because they don't like Charbonneau's message:

The Vancouver Aquarium Marine Science Centre said in a statement it's pleased with the decision. The centre said it's seeking to protect copyrighted materials developed to raise awareness about ocean conservation.

"We feel strongly that the conservation, research and education programs we lead need to be fairly represented and protected from those who choose to deliberately make false claims," said the statement.

So sue him for defamation, not copyright infringement.

Stephens, in his blog, also suggests that it's no big deal for Charbonneau to re-edit the film without those clips, because Charbonneau was quoted elsewhere saying many of those clips "were filler." I must admit, I always find it quite comical how those who claim to represent the interests of artists then think that it's fine for lawyers and judges to make artistic choices for the content creators. Charbonneau had creative reasons for using those clips. We should be quite worried when lawyers, lobbyists, judges and diplomats suddenly think that they're in the business of deciding which creative choices are allowed and which are not.

So, remember this story the next time you see these people claiming that (1) they stand up for the artist or (2) that copyright is not used for censorship. They're lying.

from the no-more-fun dept

When you assume a takedown-first posture regarding intellectual property and DMCA notices, that posture brings with it certain situations which make everyone look foolish. You get 80's music stars yanking six-second vine clips offline, for instance. Or you get radio blowhards using copyright to censor criticism online. And, of course, you get self-proclaimed representatives of aliens from the future issuing takedowns over images that said alien will be creating in said future. In each of those cases, the content was immediately taken down by the service provider, because thems the rules these days. And it sucks.

Less than 24 hours after a ballcap-wearing John Tory bobbed his head to a Kanye West song through Toronto’s subway system, the joke video appears to have been taken down. The mayor poked fun at himself in the one-minute gag clip posted Thursday, after he mistook West, who is American, for a Canadian artist earlier this week.

“This Tweet from @JohnTory has been withheld in response to a report from the copyright holder.”

Yup, because the Mayor wanted to have a little fun with his thought that ol' Yeezy was Canadian, his video gets hit with a takedown. Perhaps it was caught by some kind of automated system designed to weed out content covered by copyright... but that would make this even worse. The video, as Tory's people are acknowledging, was supposed to be a form of parody, one which would be protected as fair use. But in the takedown first culture, that doesn't really matter. The content still comes down. If it comes down by an automated system, then there's literally no possibility any thought towards fair use would be had.

And that sucks. With more ways than ever to share content with each other, these kinds of harmless things are supposed to be fun. But the fun gets killed off by a copyright system designed to restrict first and maybe ask questions later.

from the you-know,-like-US-law dept

A few years ago, Canada's Supreme Court made it clear that "fair dealing" should be applied broadly, especially in educational settings. Fair dealing, of course, is similar to fair use -- and, in the US, in theory, educational uses are also supposed to qualify for fair use. As Section 107 of the US Copyright Act states:

The fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include—

(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;

Thus, it seems like the Canadian interpretation is very much in line with the US's statutory view of fair use. Of course, over the years, in the US, publishers have repeatedly chipped away at fair use, such that now that Canada has moved to a position more akin to what the US's is supposed to be, those same publishers are absolutely flipping out. Last year, we noted that those US publishers submitted a recommendation to the USTR claiming that fair dealing in Canada was simply piracy. This was the publishers' submission to the USTR for consideration in preparing its annual Special 301 Report.

Apparently, this "fair dealing = piracy" argument didn't play well enough at the USTR and didn't make this year's Special 301 charade. So, the publishers are pissed. Or so reports a recent bit in Politico's Morning Trade (I'd link to the actual story, but Politico apparently doesn't believe in making it easy to permalink to its Morning Trade tidbits, so it's no longer there), where it notes they've asked the deputy USTR (and former BSA boss) to do something.

Deputy U.S. Trade Representative Robert Holleyman is traveling to New York today to attend the opening ceremony of BookExpo America, put on by the Association of American Publishers. The industry group is steamed over USTR’s failure in a recent report to confront what it regards as Canada’s overly broad copyright exception for educational purposes. “Active engagement by the U.S. and Canada to remedy the damage should not be put off any longer,” the AAP said.

Think about that for a second. Here are American publishers flat out complaining about Canada setting up its laws to help people get educated. Do these publishers think even in the slightest about the kind of message they're sending out? "Fuck educating children -- we want more money."

from the monkey-see,-monkey-do,-monkey-needs-to-learn-the-law dept

Dear Icondia,

I am in receipt of your letter, dated December 22nd, but received earlier this week, in which you assert a number of things and demand that we "cease and desist" from "all infringing activities" concerning the now rather famous "selfie" image taken by a macaque monkey using a camera supplied by photographer David Slater. I am assuming you're familiar with this image -- as is much of the world -- but as a reminder, it is this one:

We, as a news publication that frequently discusses intellectual property issues, have been covering this story since those photos first went viral in 2011, focusing specifically on the intellectual property questions raised by the photos, and the fact that under the law, they are unquestionably in the public domain. In fact, yours is not the first request to take down these photos, as a previous representative of Mr. Slater's, Caters News Agency, sent us a shorter demand letter in 2011. At the time we explained why we had no obligation to take down the photos.

That is still true today, even as you present your rather unique legal theories. I gather, from your website, that your organization was set up to try to cash in on the Image Rights (Bailiwick of Guernsey) Ordinance, 2012, specifically, in trying to make a big deal out of a new (and tremendously problematic) intellectual property concept known as "personality rights." It also appears that the world has not beaten a path to your door over this law, as one analysis shows that in the years since this new law passed only 51 registrations have occurred, three of which are related to this particular macaque monkey.

This law does not apply to us for a variety of reasons, just a few of which we will detail below. If we need to lay out even more reasons as to why your argument is absolutely frivolous -- such as in court -- we are prepared to do so.

First, we are a US-based company with all of our servers in the US, and the laws of the US apply to us. The laws of Guernsey do not. In the US, the image is quite clearly in the public domain, as we have discussed for years. While I recognize that some people employed by your firm have some rather unique legal theories for why this photo may not actually be in the public domain, the US Copyright Office disagrees with you. This past August, the US Copyright Office released a draft of its Compendium of Copyright Practices, which notes, rather directly, that a photograph taken by a monkey is not subject to copyright, but rather would be in the public domain. It is on page 54 of the document, though I'll post a screenshot here of the relevant portion (which I can easily do because, as a work of the federal government, this document is also in the public domain):

On December 22nd -- the same day you sent your letter -- the Copyright Office further updated the Compendium so that it is no longer in draft -- and is now officially in its 3rd edition. You can see the document here. The Copyright Office actually extended its discussion on this matter, but as you can see on page 68, Section 313.2, it still notes that a "photograph taken by a monkey" is not copyrightable subject matter under US law. While it is unlikely you saw this official edition in time for sending out this letter, the draft edition was available for many months.

As the image is unquestionably in the public domain in the US, we are not infringing on the "exclusive image rights" of the image. Thus we will not cease and desist from posting that image. We need neither permission nor a license to continue to do so and we do not believe that either you or Mr. Slater have any legitimate property rights in that image.

Even if, for argument's sake, there was a possibility of a US copyright in the image, we would still not be taking the image down, as our use of it is unquestionably fair use. The times where we have posted the image have all involved significant amounts of journalistic commentary about the image (and, mainly, how the image is in the public domain). News reporting, commentary, and criticism are all quintessential examples of fair use, and our use of the image clearly meets those criteria.

Now, let's take this a step further, and assume (solely for argument's sake) that the law of Guernsey somehow applied to us -- which it does not. Again, the law would not apply to our use. First, the personality rights law that you rely on allows for someone to register their own personality. The image here is of the macaque monkey, not David Slater or Wildlife Personalities, and thus only the macaque monkey in question could potentially qualify to register the image. But, as with copyright law, the law in question states that it only applies to a "natural person" which means "a human being." Thus, you immediately run into the same issue as to why this image is in the public domain -- it was not authored by a human being and thus is not only not subject to copyright law, but similarly not subject to Guernsey's "personality images."

Second, even if we were to ignore that particular issue, which seems rather fatal to your argument, the image in question does not appear to meet the criteria necessary to make the claims you are making. Section 28 of the Guernsey law you are trying to apply here requires that the image must be "distinctive" meaning that it is "recognised as being associated with the registered personality." However, the "personality" in question appears to be "Wildlife Personalities Limited." While that may be David Slater's company, the image in question is not widely associated with that organization, and is certainly not recognized as such. In fact, nearly all of the public discussions in the last few years about the image are about how the image is in the public domain and emphatically not linked to Slater or any company he may have. The image is recognized as being associated with the monkey itself, but again, the law clearly states that such personality rights only applies to "human beings."

Third, and more importantly, even assuming (again, for argument's sake) (1) that the image is not in the public domain, (2) that we are somehow subject to the laws of Guernsey and (3) that the image in question is properly registered under Guernsey's laws, the law still would not apply to our use. That's because Section 32 of the law makes it rather clear that it is not infringement to use such an image for "reporting current events or news commentary." Here's the section of the law, in case you haven't read it in a while:

Fair dealing with a registered personality's image for the purposes of -

(a) reporting current events or news commentary (including criticism or review), or
(b) publishing or broadcasting any other bona fide journalistic material which is a subject of general or public interest,

does not infringe that registered personality's image rights.

In short, under no possible interpretation of any law are we infringing on anyone's usage in posting the image as part of our discussion concerning how it is, unquestionably, in the public domain. Thus, we have to reject your assertion that we are somehow infringing on the image, while similarly refusing to sign your "settlement agreement" as we have nothing to settle and nothing to agree to.

I would wish you luck in your quixotic quest to create this new type of "personality right" but, frankly, I find it an offensive and dangerous expansion of theories that seek to lock up public domain information and a clear attempt to infringe on free speech rights here in the US and around the globe. If you have any further questions about any of this, I would be happy to discuss them with you or put you in contact with our legal counsel who I'm sure would be more than happy to review these points in even greater detail with you.

from the so-that's-kind-of-meaningless dept

As TorrentFreak is noting, the UK is finally modernizing basic user rights concerning copyright (what they call "fair dealing") to officially make it "legal" to make personal copies of legally acquired copies of digital content. In short, due to restrictive copyright law, it has always been technically infringement in the UK to rip a CD or DVD, but as of June that will change. This was one of the key suggestions in the Hargreaves report from three years ago, so it's good to see it finally being put into action.

That said, this is hardly perfect. It appears that the fair dealing rules still won't let you circumvent DRM in order to make those private copies. In the FAQ the UK government is distributing, we see the following:

As that notes, if the media includes DRM, you're basically out of luck:

Media such as DVDs are often protected by anti-copying technology to guard against copyright piracy, and this is protected by law. Copyright owners will still be able to apply this protection. However, if copy protection is too restrictive, you may raise a complaint with the Secretary of State.

Right, so in order to rip a personal copy of a movie so you might, for example, watch it on your tablet, rather than in a DVD player, you first have to "raise a complaint with the Secretary of State" and hope they do something about it? That basically eliminates this new effort entirely. And that's always been the problem with DRM and anti-circumvention rules. They basically give content middlemen the ability to put a veto on user rights, blocking them from doing things that are perfectly legal.

from the also:-our-jacked-up-rates-no-longer-as-lucrative-as-they-used-to-be dept

Access Copyright, the Canadian collection society that licenses publications for use in Canadian educational institutions, increased its per student rates 1,300% back in 2010. Anyone with a passing familiarity with the term "pricing yourself out of the market" could have predicted the inevitable outcome. Faced with suddenly exorbitant fees (that even covered stuff nominally outside of AC's purview -- like hyperlinks), Canadian universities dropped Access Copyright and began working to license educational materials without AC's assistance.

Access Copyright thought being the "only game in town" would prevent a mass exodus, but it soon became clear universities would be more than happy to deal with the complexities of direct licensing rather than take the easy route and be gouged by AC. (Fun fact: rates jumped 1,300% but less than 10% of these fees make their way back to the actual authors.) 14 of Canada's top 25 universities had dropped Access Copyright by the middle of 2011.

US publishers aren't happy with the outcome of Access Copyright's rate hike, which has resulted in a considerable revenue drop. Of course, they don't blame Access Copyright. In its submission for the 2014 Special 301 report (the report that serves as the copyright industries' naughty/nice list), IIPA (the uber trade group representing all of the other copyright maximalist trade groups) blames everyone and everything but Access Copyright.

As the Canadian education community continues to shift away from the Access Copyright licence, relying instead on a combination of site licenses for materials, open access, fair dealing, and individual transactional licences, U.S. publishers are now urging the U.S. government to pressure the Canadian government to take action.

Yep, the problem here is fair dealing (the Canadian version of fair use), open access and the universities' willingness to swim in the convoluted waters of individual licensing rather than be extorted by Access Copyright. A few long paragraphs from the submission detail US publishers' unhappiness with the current situation and their expectation that the US government will "do something" to restore its access to exorbitant licensing fees.

U.S. publishers serving the educational market with textbooks, journals and other materials are currently facing a comprehensive collapse of an important element of their Canadian market: licensing revenue for permission to copy works for educational uses. Well-established collective licensing mechanisms for administering such permissions are reeling under the combined impact of adverse judicial decisions and drastic legislative changes.

Interrupted here to note that US publishers do not consider a steep rate hike to be the problem. Instead they call out "judicial decisions" and "drastic legislative changes," ignoring the economic reality that if you suddenly jack up prices, customers tend to flee.

The Copyright Modernization Act added “education” to the list of purposes (such as research and private study) that qualify for the fair dealing exception. Because “education” is not defined, the amendment creates an obvious risk of unpredictable impacts extending far beyond teaching in bona fide educational institutions (and far beyond materials created specifically for use by such institutions).

Entities heavily vested in copyright protection hate exceptions…

Even before the fair dealing amendment came into force, some of the decisions in the “pentalogy” of copyright decisions issued by Canada’s Supreme Court in July 2012 posed a direct threat to the educational licensing market. These decisions underscored, among other things, that Canadian courts are to treat fair dealing, not as an exception, but as a “user’s right,” subject to a “large and liberal interpretation”; that the purposes of the putative user, not those of a commercial or non-commercial intermediary that actually makes the copy and supplies it to the user, are of primary relevance in determining whether a dealing is fair; and, that factors such as the availability of a license to make the use, and even the overall impact of widespread unlicensed use on the actual or potential markets for the work, carry much less weight in Canadian law than they do in U.S. fair use jurisprudence.

Canada has gone considerably farther than the US, viewing fair dealing both as a right and something subject to "liberal interpretation." The complaint here boils down to that last sentence: Canada's law isn't as restrictive as the US's and, therefore, must be forced into compliance by the US government.

Although the Alberta Education v. Access Copyright case in the Supreme Court’s pentalogy directly affected only a marginal aspect of the educational copying collective licenses — reprographic copying of a few pages per student per year of short excerpts of already purchased supplemental texts by K-12 teachers for use in class instruction — its ultimate impact has been much more destructive.

Only in the fevered mind of a maximalist is expanding fair use exceptions considered "destructive." Keep in mind that this is an industry that is actively begging its respective governments to help it make it more expensive to educate students.

Lawyers for primary and secondary school systems across Canada, giving both the precedents and the new fair dealing amendment the “large and liberal” reading that the pentalogy decisions encouraged, concluded that fair dealing now eliminates the need for them to obtain any license from a collecting society such as Access Copyright, including for uses such as copying of primary textbooks or of newspaper articles, course packs, digital copying (including digital storage and distribution through learning management systems), and copying for uses outside the classroom. Consequently, as soon as the new Act came into force, virtually all K-12 school boards across Canada cancelled their licenses with Access Copyright.

The publishers once again fail to consider the possibility that lower rates might have helped it retain more licensees. This isn't just because of legislation and court decisions. This is also the bleeding that normally results from an enormous, self-inflicted wound.

Anticipated 2013 annual licensing revenue of at least C$12 million to right holders and authors — much of it destined for U.S. publishers, which enjoy a large market share in the educational sector – evaporated. Similar legal advice was provided to post-secondary institutions, and many of them have declined to renew their Access Copyright licenses as they expire. Access Copyright negotiations with two of Canada’s largest universities — the University of Toronto and Western University – collapsed in recent weeks over this issue. The licensing revenue stream from higher education – historically larger than the K-12 revenue – is thus in immediate jeopardy...

Just in case anyone reading the submission might be unsure of whose interests are being protected, the publishers spell it out in black and white.

After stating its case against fair dealing, the publishers move on to their demands for government intervention.

Publishers are already re-assessing their planned investments in new materials for this core market. We urge the U.S. government to engage with Canadian authorities to ameliorate this threat to the entire educational publishing market in Canada, which is already having deleterious impacts on publishing revenue, investments and jobs on both sides of the border.

In other words, punish the Canadian government for Access Copyright's sins.

But all of this above isn't even the best/worst aspect of this submission. This long complaint about the whirlwind Access Copyright reaped after its 1,300% fee increase makes up the bulk of a subsection in the IIPA's submission. Guess what subheading the US publishers chose to place their attack on fair dealing under.

The Piracy and Infringement Situation in Canada – Offline

That's right. US publishers feel fair dealing exceptions are inseparable from piracy and infringement. Legal exceptions also known as the rights of users, backed by Canadian legislation and judicial decisions, are discussed (well, complained about) in a subsection supposedly dealing with infringing activity. By the time the US publishers have finished griping about fair dealing, there's hardly any room left to discuss actual infringement or piracy. But if you have any doubts about the mindset of US publishers when it comes to fair use exceptions, check this out. This is the last sentence of the last paragraph dealing with Access Copyright and fair dealing.

Even if some expanded uses are permitted, the appropriate balance must still be struck so that educational publishers are duly compensated for their works, thus ensuring a viable domestic \ marketplace for commercially-published educational materials.

The annual Special 301 reports have always been a joke -- albeit an in-joke created by lobbyists and subservient government officials. If there was ever any doubt US copyright industries are lobbying hard for the US government to remake the world's IP laws in its own image, this long complaint about the "unfairness" of another country's fair dealing laws completely erases it.

from the how-can-they-deny-it? dept

Back in April, we pointed out that the MPAA was working overtime to screw over the blind in the negotiations for a WIPO treaty to make it easier for the blind and those with vision impairment to access works for the blind. They'd already succeeded in screwing over the deaf by getting them excluded from the treaty, despite it initially being for both. Over the past two months, however, the MPAA tried to go on a charm offensive going on and on about how much they really, really liked blind people and wanted to help get a treaty passed, even somehow getting the National Federation for the Blind to throw their own members under the bus by issuing a joint statement claiming to support the treaty.

However, over the past week, the reports coming out of the treaty negotiations in Marrakesh have been consistent about one thing: the MPAA's influence over the US negotiators has been immense, and the US negotiators have been the single source blocking the completion of the treaty by arguing to gut the entire treaty, making it next to useless. They've fought against fair use. They've fought against exceptions to copyright. It's gotten so bad that even the mainstream press has picked up on the MPAA's direct assault on the blind. The Washington Post has an article all about the MPAA's attempts to block and change the treaty such that it is effectively useless.

But the treaty, years in the making, could be in jeopardy because of unresolved differences between advocates for the blind and the Motion Picture Association of America, which says the accord could undermine protections important for filmmakers, publishers and other major industries.

Of course, you might wonder why the MPAA is so concerned about a treaty for the blind, which is mostly focused on written materials, since that shouldn't impact the MPAA very much. The answer is what we've said for years: copyright maximalists will fight against any treaty that recognizes the rights of people to push back against maximalism through things like fair use. And the MPAA isn't even coy about this:

“What happens here could affect other future treaties,” said Chris Marcich, who is in charge of dealing with the negotiations for the MPAA and its international wing, the Motion Picture Association.

Yes, how dare the public have their rights supported during treaty negotiations about what they can do with works they own. Horrors.

The article also highlights that the MPAA was instrumental in getting the negotiators to drop more expansive fair use rights of the public included, insisting instead on only allowing the "three step test" from the Berne Convention included. As we've discussed in the past the three step test is merely one way in which a country can protect the public's rights to limitations and exceptions in copyright law, but maximalists like to claim it's the only way, because if you read it in the strictest sense, it severely limits fair use, because a use fails the "three step test" if it "unreasonably prejudices the legitimate interests of the rights holder." In other words, if the rights holder doesn't like it, no fair use for you. Amazingly, even this test is now not enough for the MPAA:

But the MPAA says the protections afforded by the three-step test are still too weak and wants them to be more effective. Moreover, Hollywood is strongly resisting language in the draft that mirrors the concept of “fair use,” long embodied in U.S. copyright law. Fair use says that copyright material can be used without permission in certain circumstances, such as for nonprofit educational purposes.

Related to all of this, KEI has received, via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, all emails between MPAA lobbyists and the negotiators from the USPTO (who are handling much of the negotiation). It's worth noting, by the way, that the key person at the USPTO (and the person addressed in many of these emails) is Shire Perlmutter, currently the Chief Policy Officer and Director for International Affairs at the USPTO, but prior to that was the Executive VP of IFPI (the international version of of the RIAA) and before that, was VP and Associate General Counsel for Intellectual Property Policy at Time Warner... a member of the MPAA when it owned Warner Bros.

Included in the documents is an incredible attack on fair use by the MPAA, sent in April of this year, just as the MPAA was insisting it wanted to help the blind, and at the same time that the MPAA's Ben Sheffner was, ridiculously, pretending that the MPAA was one of the world's biggest defenders of fair use. Yet, at the very same time, they were promoting a document that claimed the following about fair use:

As has been pointed out by various commentators, open-ended systems such as fair use under Sec. 107 US Copyright Act may raise issues with the three-step test, in particular the first and possibly third step.... Consequently, it is neither necessary nor would it be reasonable or desirable in view of the mentioned difficulties to include an express reference to fair use or fair dealing in the proposed instrument.

A specific reference to fair use or fair dealing could also be misleading for it could be understood as an invitation to implement the instrument in such a way, whether or not it sits well with the particular legal system of the Contracting Party in question. However, any wholesale introduction of a particular legal feature, be it fair use, fair dealing or a closed list, would be contrary to the intended effect of the discretion that Contracting Parties may exercise with regard to the way of implementing their treaty obligations....

At a time when the fair use doctrine is considered by many as a cure for all ills, this would clearly be the wrong sign....

Consequently, for all the foregoing reasons, the reference to specific ways of implementation such as fair use or fair dealing should be omitted from the proposed instrument.

These are the defenders of fair use? These are the folks who claim they're trying to help the blind? That's all a lie. And the quotes above are just a few. There are a lot more of that nature. The MPAA wants to screw over the blind out of a fear that people might realize that fair use and other rights of the public might just be more important than an artificial government monopoly system to inflate their bottom lines.

Later in the documents, you can see the cozy relationship between the key government players, Perlmutter and Justin Hughes (another well-known maximalist supporter, now in the government) and MPAA members and lobbyists. There's also a discussion about how three steps in Berne only applies to certain types of copyright rights (reproduction rights), but does not apply to other things like public performances, and how their wishes are to go even further and make sure the very limiting 3 steps applies to everything. It also shows that the US government, via Perlmutter and Hughes, helped propose back to the MPAA how they might achieve their goals in the agreement. In an email from Scott Martin at Paramount to Perlmutter:

I suggested to Justin the concept that I heard from both you and Karyn Temple Claggett: membership in the VIP Treaty be limited to countries that have ratified and implemented the WCT. Perhaps if there is resistance from non-ratifiers, the US/EU could then proposal a new Article Ebis that would apply only to countries which want to ratify the VIP Treaty but which have not yet ratified and implemented WCT.

Justin seemed intrigued by the idea and mused that perhaps the Japanese proposal for Article E could be expanded to cover this separate goal.

There are also cases where people, such as Time Warner employees, were sending language they wanted inserted directly to Hughes at his request. At one point, Hughes emails Bradley Silver at Time Warner with a simple request:

Could you just send me the whole language?

That was after Silver specifically asked Hughes to "tweak" the language in one section.

Basically, the documents make it abundantly clear that the MPAA is trying to keep fair use/fair dealing way out of the agreement, and then seeking to undermine things even further by putting in place an extreme version of the three step test -- a test that already goes way too far in limiting the public's rights to make use of works. It further shows that the MPAA's public stance that it's in support of a treaty for the blind is hogwash. It's in support of a treaty that strips away many of the rights for the blind.

from the that'll-go-over-well dept

We spent a fair amount of time last year writing about Access Copyright, the Canadian copyright collection group that collects fees from universities for photocopying, and then is supposed to distribute the money to various authors (it's not always good at actually doing that). There were significant complaints because the group tried to massively increase its rates (we're talking an increase of 1,300%), creating a big burden on students, often for no added benefit. There were some sketchy negotiations, and for reasons that still don't make sense, a bunch of universities agreed to pay the crazy rates. Others, smartly, opted-out. On top of all that, around the same time, the Canadian Supreme Court ruled in a series of copyright cases where it protected fair dealing, especially when it came to education and research.

Apparently, rather than accept reality, Access Copyright has decided to declare war on fair dealing. As Michael Geist has detailed, Access Copyright is basically just trying to do an end-run around the law and the Supreme Court rulings.

Access Copyright has decided to fight the law - along with governments,
educational institutions, teachers, librarians, and taxpayers - on several fronts. It has filed for an interim tariff with the Copyright Board in an effort to stop K-12 schools from opting out of its licence and it has filed a proposed post-secondary tariff
that would run well after most Canadian schools will have opted out of
its licence. Most notably, it has filed a lawsuit against York
University over its fair dealing guidelines,
which are similar to those adopted by educational institutions across
the country. While the lawsuit has yet to be posted online, the Access
Copyright release suggests that the suit is not alleging specific
instances of infringement, but rather takes issue with guidelines it
says are "arbitrary and unsupported" and that "authorize and encourage
copying that is not supported by the law."

Basically, Access Copyright lost entirely, but it's still pretending that it won. Given the pretty decisive Supreme Court situation, you have to wonder what Access Copyright is thinking, other than "well, we know how to sue, so..." Meanwhile, of course, students suffer massively from this kind of crap. Overcharging students for education doesn't do anyone any favors.

from the it's-there dept

We've seen some pushback against fair use/fair dealing over the years -- especially by copyright maximalists who like to pretend that such public rights as codified as fair use and fair dealing somehow violate international treaties. That's ridiculous. Jonathan Band and Jonathan Gerafi have put together a fantastic handbook detailing every fair use and fair dealing law they could find around the globe. The end result? Over 40 countries, covering more than one-third of the world's population, have these laws as a part of their copyright laws. That doesn't mean that all of them are well written or as strong and protective of the rights of the public as they could be. However, as Band notes, this suggests that "there is no basis for preventing the more widespread adoption of these doctrines, with the benefits their flexibility brings to authors, publishers, consumers, technology companies, libraries, museums, educational institutions, and governments."

from the double-standard dept

Update: Since this morning, National Post seems to have disabled this feature. Whether the change is permanent or not I can't say.

Despite three years of journalism school and several more working at newspapers, I'll never understand the double standard that journalists and publishers have when it comes to copyright and fair use/fair dealing. The act of reporting relies heavily on the latter, and the news business would be a very different place if newspapers were expected to pay licensing fees on the quotes they gather from experts, reports and other sources. Thus, newspapers have traditionally been staunch defenders of fair use—that is, until they find themselves on the other side of the equation.

If you try to highlight the text to cut and paste it, you are presented with a pop-up request to purchase a licence if you plan to post the article to a website, intranet or a blog. The fee would be $150. ... If you click no to the pop-up, you cannot copy the text. If you click "quit asking me", the request stops.

I've seen newspapers with "license calculators" for quotes before, and of course we've all seen websites that frustratingly interfere with your copy-and-pase or right-click abilities—but this is the first time I've seen the two combined. The system is driven by iCopyright, a plugin that promises to make it "super easy" for people to license your content, but I guess not so easy that people won't hopefully feel compelled to pay.

This isn't just a dumb idea—it's a really hypocritical game for a newspaper to be playing. Geist underlined the irony by pointing to the regular Post feature Full Pundit, in which writer Chris Selley does a roundup of editorial and opinion columns from the week in Canadian media. Naturally, this involves lots of quotes and snippets from these other media sources, which Selley then expands on or disagrees with or otherwise comments upon—all unlicensed quotes, the use of which is clearly protected under Canada's fair dealing laws for commentary and criticism (and would be equally protected in the US under fair use laws). But if you try grabbing a snippet from Full Pundit, you'll be asked to pay a license. Worse still, if you try to grab one of the quotes from another newspaper on the National Post site, you'll still get the same popup telling you to look into licensing options... for a quote they don't own and are themselves using for free on the basis of fair dealing.

The popup does not mention fair dealing or fair use. It takes some digging to find iCopyright's fair use statement, which is a masterpiece of menacing disingenuousness. As we've noted in the past, the fact that the boundaries of fair use and fair dealing are often unclear creates a massive chilling effect, since people are unsure about their rights and not always willing or able to fight for them, and iCopyright relies on that very effect to scare people into paying up:

The use of excerpts from others' works without a license is permitted in certain limited circumstances under the "fair use" doctrine of U.S. Copyright Law and the "fair dealing" doctrine in Commonwealth nations. However, republication on the internet, without a license, of even a small portion of a work can constitute copyright infringement.

The distinction between "fair use" or "fair dealing" and infringement is not easily defined because each re-use has unique characteristics that must be analyzed. For example, there is no specific number of words or lines that may safely be taken without permission. Acknowledging the source of the copyrighted material does not substitute for obtaining permission. For additional information you may want to do an internet search of "fair use checklist" and "copyright myths."

Got that? "It's pretty hard to know if something's fair use, so you probably shouldn't bother." The page then offers a list of factors that often come up in fair use analyses, and suggests that if any of them apply to your use, it is "cause for serious reflection" on whether or not you are protected:

Is the excerpt such that the reader may feel he/she already has the gist of the original work and no longer needs to read it?

Is it your intent to earn money, whether through ads, subscription revenues, or otherwise?

Is the work that was excerpted highly creative?

Are you choosing not to exercise an affordable and accessible licensing mechanism?

Are you publishing the excerpt widely, such as on the Web?

Is the work of excerpted authors the main draw to your work as opposed to serving as a "footnote"?

Now, it's true that all of those are factors that can matter, but it's also true that you could answer 'yes' to virtually all of them and still be within the bounds of fair use/fair dealing. This is easily demonstrated by looking at the snippets within the National Post Full Pundit columns, which are a definitive "yes" on all but the first item. The issue of quote length is doubly amusing, since the Post recently lost a lawsuit it brought against an internet forum, because the Supreme Court declared that posting large snippets (multiple paragraphs) of articles can still be fair dealing, and that the established fair dealing exceptions for "news reporting" can include things like online forum discussions.

And that's where we see the double standard emerge. For a long time, newspapers really were the only source for news reporting, and thus over the years they got some special considerations in the laws and in the courts. Today everyone is a reporter, a photographer and a publisher, and these non-ink-stained wretches are quite rightly utilizing the same rights that "official" news sources have, for the same purposes. Newspapers like the National Post seem to have a hard time getting their head around that, so they launch lawsuits against forums and stick pointless bullying popups on their websites. It strikes me as a matter of arrogance more than anything else.

And, of course, it has to be asked: what is this going to accomplish? It's certainly not going to become a massive revenue stream for the paper, with bloggers (who are becoming well-versed in fair use and fair dealing themselves) forking over $150 every time they want to quote the National Post. There is another possibility, which is that it's a legal tactic: in future lawsuits, the Post could point to this popup tool as an "available and affordable license" that someone chose to forego, giving them a slight leg up in an anti-fair-dealing argument.

Either way, it's a hypocritical and even somewhat despicable move. The National Post is fighting against an important legal protection that is vital to newspapers themselves and to free speech as a whole. Here's hoping that the writers featured in Full Pundit columns, and anyone else quoted in the Post, calls up the newsroom and demands a $150 licensing fee.